Escape 3: Defeat the Aliens (26 page)

“Jane, I’m heading for the
Talking Skin
,” he called over his helmet comlink. “I’ve convinced this ship’s AI to follow me so you can destroy this ship without killing its ship mind. Uh, we are bringing with us eight collector pods. Seven are transporting containment cells with Captives in them. The eighth is loaded with two taser-zapped crew folks. You might wish to eject seven cells from our Containment Cell Chamber.”

“Bill!” she called, sounding happy. “What a relief! Glad you made this deal with the AI. And I’m glad we’re saving the lives of some Captives. We can deliver them to Geneva later on, after we reach Earth. Come home, my XO.”

He grinned as, below him the particle accelerator’s floor hole closed and the ceiling above opened up. Beyond it another hole opened in the ship’s flexmetal hull. A puff of whiteness was the exit of air from the two rooms. Above him, white stars shone against carbon-black space. The gray hull of his transport hovered just above the hole. Already Star Traveler was orienting the ship so its open midbody airlock hatch would be in line with his vector track. Very nice to have the cooperation of a ship mind that could anticipate human needs. Since it had been listening to all he’d said, and was now in touch with Dexterity, maybe the smart-ass AI would arrange for two of its hover bots to transport the two teddy bears to containment cells on their ship. Might as well put those cells to some use.

“Sounds fine, my captain. Your XO returns. And congrats on saving Earth from destruction. And seven billion people from an ugly death.”

♦   ♦   ♦

Jane sobered as she heard Bill’s words. Strange. She had become the leader of people that she had always hoped to be when she’d done her sat monitoring job at Space Command. As a captain she had supervised two people in Building One at Peterson. Out here, she’d commanded hundreds. Thousands as she mentally added up the crews on the subs, living and gone. She licked her lips. This battle was nearly done. She watched her holos, especially the systems graphic that showed moving red dots for Bill’s transport, the AI transport and eight collector pods carrying containment cells. The cells were airtight and able to survive on their own for some hours. It was how a Collector ship captain transferred sold Captives to a Buyer’s ship. It was part of the design of such ships. There were hull flaps on the right side for the exit of collector pods. And hull flaps on the left side for the exit of Captive-filled cells. Plus a large hangar door on the left side that allowed the entry and exit of three transports. Which mental image reminded her they were short a transport. This new transport would join the transports
Tall Trees
and
Talking Skin
. She liked that.

“We’re home,” Bill called over the comlink.

She saw that. The pods were depositing the cells into the Containment Chamber slots that she had emptied of cells. The transports were now entering the transport chamber. In seconds the collector pods would arc up and over the demolished spine plasma battery and down to an entry into her Collector Pods Chamber. Now empty. At least they had gained back eight pods. Nice to benefit from the ship that she would soon destroy.

“I see that,” she called. “Welcome home! XO, come up here ASAP. I think you will want to be present for the final act of this battle.”

“Will do,” Bill responded.

What else? Well, she needed to pee. The multiple cups of coffee she’d had since morning, lifting her helmet to suck dry the coffee squeeze pods, had left her bladder feeling too full. She stood up. “Heading to my habitat room. Captain is off the bridge. Command assigned to Vice Admiral Chester Richardson.”

The man stood up from his Engines station just as Jane stepped off her command pedestal platform. He gave her a salute and a smile. “Command accepted. Temporarily.”

She saluted him back, then turned and headed for the exit to the front cross hallway. Time to hurry. She wanted to be back in her seat when Bill arrived.

♦   ♦   ♦

Bill exited the
Talking Skin’s
midbody airlock and walked down the slanting ramp that gave access to the Transport Exit Chamber’s gray metal floor. In front of him the transport containing Dexterity settled down on its support legs. The other transport’s midbody hatch slid open. Above him two silvery hover bots appeared, slanting down. They entered the open hatch. It closed. He began walking toward the corner of the chamber where there was a ramp leading to the deck below. Which would connect him with a ramp leading up to the deck that gave access to the left side main hallway. Just like on the enemy ship. He stopped when his ears, now exposed to air since he’d pushed his helmet back onto his back, heard the other transport’s hatch opening. He looked back.

The two hover bots slowly exited. Resting atop them was a purple metal box with faceted corners and side walls. The hover bots finished exiting the airlock, turned toward him and flew his way.

“Dexterity, is that you riding on those hover bots?”

“It is me,” the AI’s humming voice said from the suit’s comlink speakers. “Ship mind Star Traveler has invited me to occupy a habitat room near it.”

Bill stopped at the down ramp entry. He frowned. “Don’t you need to be near a fusion reactor for power?”

“Not always,” the AI hummed as the hover bots came up to him, then carried the long box of the AI over his head, and down the ramp to the deck below. “We ship minds can exist on broadcast power. Even your Human low tech society possesses such power transmission capabilities.”

“True,” Bill said, turning and walking down the ramp as he followed the slow moving hover bots.

“However, Star Traveler has promised to reroute a power cable from the front fusion reactor into my habitat room,” it hummed. “That cable will link to my power intake socket. Your ship mind has also promised to provide me with some sensor links to this ship’s systems. It feels very . . . lonely to not perceive my home.”

Bill followed the hover bots up the ramp that led up to the deck level used by him and all crew. “Lonely I know about. Had not realized how alone I was until I met Jane and fell in love with her.”

More humming came over his comlink. “Love is a bioform emotion, yes?”

“Yes.” He stopped before the hatch door that gave access to the left side hallway. The hover bots preceded him through it.

“We ship minds have long lives. We find satisfaction in contact with other ship minds. Star Traveler has an unusual compartment it labels ‘deception’. Did you know this?”

Bill followed after the hover bots. They sped up and moved quickly along the hallway. “I do know of it. Its compartment is similar to one function of a bioform mind.”

“Strange. But I assume I will meet other bioforms as I wait in orbit for my new ship home to be built. Is this correct?”

Bill grinned. How would this ship mind react to fake out bidding in a poker game? It clearly was not able to read facial expressions. Not yet anyway. “That is correct. We humans come in two primary genders, male and female, along with variants of those two genders. You are familiar with gender variations, aren’t you?”

“I am. I chose the male gender after my birth and graduation from the nursery asteroid at the star you call Kepler 443.”

“Welcome to bio-life,” he called to the vanishing form of the two bots and AI.

“Thank you.”

The three mech creatures disappeared around the curve of the left side hallway. Time for him to return to duty. He picked up his walk until he was loping along the corridor, his backpack jiggling a bit. It felt less heavy than before. That made sense considering the stuff he’d left behind on
Fear Arrives
. Demo balls and magnetic disruptor blocks were not light items. He stopped before the Command Bridge entry hatch. He pulled up his ship’s red cube from where it hung about the waist of his tube suit, pointed it at the hatch and pressed the Open spot. The hatch swung out toward him, moving to his right. He stepped through the hatch.

Jane was sitting six feet up on top of the command pedestal, her posture in her captain’s seat one of tenseness. Ahead of him were Bright Sparkle, Chester, Wind Swift and Lofty Flyer.

“Hey everyone! I’m back!”

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Jane heard Bill’s words. She turned, looked back to him, let her eyes drink in the fact he showed no wounds, and smiled. Then she saluted him.

“Welcome back, XO. Excellent job you did in taking over that ship. Any surprises?”

Bill saluted her back, walked up to just below her elevated seat, looked up, gave her a wink, then headed forward. “Not a lot. Turns out the Mokden snake-gorillas can shake off a taser hit. I got him at least once and he showed no reaction. Which is why I used the laser. Several times. He pursued me. He died before he could try to wrassle me.”

Jane wondered at that. She’d heard his voice when he’d lied to the monster about cutting his way through a wall with his laser. She’d heard Death Leader’s voice reacting. The two demo ball blasts had been loud to her ears. Then she’d heard only the sounds of heavy breathing on Bill’s part, some grunts, the sounds of a struggle, the snap as his helmet opened up. Then had come the sound of Bill’s taser zapping the crewpersons on the ship. That was followed by his discussion with ship mind Dexterity. Had it been as easy as Bill made it sound? Maybe she could get the newly arrived Dexterity to transmit holo vids of what had happened on the bridge. Sometime when Bill was elsewhere. What mattered was he was
here
, alive and ready to take over his Weapons station.

“Sounds good,” she replied. She tapped the weapons control pillar in front of her. “Just transferred your Weapons control functions back to your station.”

“Thanks.” He pulled off his backpack, let it fall behind his seat, then sat. Her husband, lover and ship’s Executive Officer leaned forward, touching the four holo control pillars that partly surrounded his work station. He fixed on the systems graphic holo to his left. “The
Fear Arrives
is not doing anything. Though it is powered up and operational thanks to its two surviving fusion reactors. What next?”

“Wellll . . . ,” she said slowly. “I thought you might like to aim our antimatter projector at that hulk and remove it from my sight. Yes?”

♦   ♦   ♦

Bill grinned. Whenever Jane spoke that way he had learned it was both an invitation and a prompt for him to do something. “Yes. Very much yes, captain.”

He checked his true space holo. It showed nothing but a scatter of white stars and the distant blue sparkle of Earth. Plus the yellow orb of the Sun at the upper left of the holo. He looked at his Weapons holo. The cross-section of the ship showed most weapons as Green Operational. The topside plasma battery was a melted pile of junk thanks to a laser hit. There was a large opening over the Collector Pod Chamber where something had removed 40 feet of hull. And there was a smaller hole above the ship’s Containment Cell Chamber. Which was now being closed by repair robots and hover bots sent there by Star Traveler. The ship’s MITV railgun launching chamber below his level was empty of torps. What was operational were the pairs of nose and tail lasers, the belly plasma battery and the topside antimatter projector. The AM reservoir held enough antimatter for six shots. He tapped the fire control panel to set up the targeting reticule for the AM projector. Putting his finger on the panel, he moved the reticule sideways until it lay directly over the front part of the
Fear Arrives
. He tapped that part of the panel, locking in the target lock.

“Captain, ready to fire.”

“XO and Weapons Chief, fire.”

Bill tapped the fire patch on the panel.

In his true space holo, a black beam of antimatter spat forward at the speed of light. Its contact with the giant bulbous nose of the enemy ship was disastrous. A yellow-white cloud of energy replaced the front portion of the ship. He tapped the fire patch again. The second antimatter beam hit the faint plasma cloud, vaporized the few particles in it, then passed through and struck the middle fragment of the ship. The fragment became yellow-white plasma in the true space holo. The radar, infrared, ultraviolet and neutrino sensors on his weapons control pillar showed the rest of the story. Nothing solid remained. Only billowing gases briefly produced by the matter-to-energy destruction of the enemy ship showed on the true space holo. Which now vanished since the powerful explosion had consumed nearly a hundred percent of the ship’s matter. The purple dot of the ship disappeared from his system graphic holo. He looked right to his comlink holo. Jane’s image filled it.

“Captain, enemy ship
Fear Arrives
is gone. No enemy ships are operational. Enemy commander is dead.”

Behind him he heard a loud sigh from her. Chester also sighed and sat back in his seat. Bright Sparkle gave him a thumbs-up and a big smile. Wind Swift and Lofty Flyer showed their approval in the manner of their species.

“Excellent,” Jane said, her tone command formal. “Star Traveler, establish an encrypted neutrino comlink to Peterson. Mark it to the attention of General Harriet Poindexter.”

“Signal sent. Response incoming.”

♦   ♦   ♦

Jane looked to her right at her comlink holo. It filled with the black face and gray-streaked hair of her commander and the chief of the United States Air Force. She was also the woman in command of all Earth forces operating beyond the atmosphere, by command of President Hartman and agreement of other national leaders.
And
she was the mother of a grown son who had come close to dying in the attacks on American rocket launching bases that had happened during Diligent Taskmaster’s six ship attack on Earth. On the woman’s right side sat General Paul J. McAuley, chairman of the JCS, his thick-jawed face looking very sober. On her left sat the Japanese-American general who commanded the Army. Beyond those people were the other chiefs of the Marines, Navy, National Guard and the vice chairman of the JCS. Seven in all. They were all there, like that day a year ago when she had orbited above Peterson in the sole starship controlled by a human. How things had changed since then. She saluted the woman.

“General Poindexter, I report. The enemy is defeated. Their ships are destroyed or disabled. There is no longer any Alien threat to Earth.”

The woman fixed brown eyes on her. Her slim fingers held an iPad just above the flat screen inset into the tactical display table at Building One where the JCS chiefs now sat. Behind Poindexter and the chiefs were several dozen people of all officer grades. Those included officers from Britain, France, Russia and China, as best she could tell by the uniforms they wore. Clearly Building One had become the joint command site for the defense of Earth.

“So we have observed, Captain Yamaguchi. We appreciated the continuous neutrino downlink of audio vid from your command deck.” Poindexter glanced down at her iPad, winced, then laid it down. She looked up. “What were our losses?”

Jane had been dreading this moment. It was one reason she’d stalled on destroying the
Fear Arrives
until Bill’s return. That had now happened. It was time to face her duty, as Bill had.

“My fleets lost one Collector ship and eight subs.” She licked her lips, recalling sad details from memory. Painful memory. “The Collector ship
USS Pointe De Hoc
, BBG-6, was lost with all aboard. Those were Captain Jesse Winthorp, two Rangers, two Delta Force enlisted and a Slinkeroo crewmate. Six in all.” She took a deep breath. “The lost subs are the
USS Wyoming
,
USS Louisiana
,
USS Minnesota
,
HMS Vengeance
,
FNS
Terrible, Vladimir Monomakh
,
Alexsandr Nevskiy
and the
Chairman Mao Zedong.
People lost on the subs amount to at least 1,029. Plus we lost Ranger Mark Neller when the
USS Musan
was hit by a laser. That ship lost both engines and is being corralled by the
USS Tangi Valley
. In total, we lost 1,036 humans and one Alien ally during our multiple battles near and past Jupiter.”

Poindexter blinked, licked her lips, then nodded quickly. “We will handle the notifications to their families and spouses. And to the Slinkeroo embassy in Geneva. What of the enemy ships that survived? What is their status?”

Finally, a chance to share some good news. “We destroyed eight enemy Collector ships, including the flagship
Fear Arrives
. Twenty-two enemy ships have lost their Magfield engines, but most of each ship is intact. The ship minds on 21 ships are cooperating with us. Most AIs blocked weapons use in the early part of the battle. One ship mind was destroyed by the enemy in order to regain ship control.” She paused, checked her system graphics holo, and looked back to the woman who controlled her destiny. “General Poindexter, I have asked those subs and Collector ships who lag behind my current group of five ships to use their Magfield spacedrives to rendezvous with the enemy ships, then use their drives to push those ships onto a vector aimed at the Earth-Moon system. As I discussed with you, I plan to move the surviving enemy ships into orbit above Earth. There to receive new Magfield engines from the ship factory you recently orbited. Is this disposition satisfactory?”

McAuley’s expression brightened. “So we have gained the foundations for 22 new Collector ships? With operational stardrives?”

Jane noticed the calmness of Poindexter. Well, if she wasn’t bothered by the JCS chairman’s insertion of himself into her first debriefing, she would not object. “General McAuley, yes, that is correct. And yes, all 22 captured enemy ships have operational Alcubierre stardrives. All stardrives are located in the middle of a Collector ship. Only the rear third of each ship was destroyed.”

She noticed the movement of the foreign officers closer to the JCS table. Clearly some of them wanted to claim some of her captured ships. The Army chief of staff on Poindexter’s left leaned forward.

“Captain Poindexter, Ranger Sergeant Neller was part of my Army family,” said the general, whose name she recalled was Kenji Fujiwara. “Please be aware we will shortly inform his parents that he is being awarded the Distinguished Service Cross, the Distinguished Service Medal and the Purple Heart.” The man paused. “Captain Winthorp was also a Ranger. She too will be awarded the Distinguished Service Cross, the Distinguished Service Medal and the Purple Heart. The other Ranger and Delta Force crew members on her ship will each be awarded the Distinguished Service Medal, the Soldier’s Medal and the Purple Heart. I wish I could do more.”

Her heart thumped faster. The many deaths she had just recited were terrible. The deaths of people she knew was worse. The loss of Bill’s saloon buddy Mark was supremely painful. She’d gotten to know the man. His absence from her life was a hollow echo deep inside. “Thank you, General Fujiwara. The news . . . is good to hear. I hope it will give solace to his parents and her husband.”

Poindexter leaned forward. “That is also my hope. For Sergeant Neller’s parents and for the families of all those we lost. Finally, yes, your use of outlying ships to redirect the 22 enemy ships is approved by me.” The middle-aged woman looked down at her iPad, then up, her curly black eyebrows lifting. “Captain Yamaguchi, what is—”

“General,” interrupted the new Chief of Naval Operations, a black man whose head was shaved smooth. “May I add a few words?”

The woman looked to her far left where the CNO sat. “Vice Admiral Jackson, you may.”

The man fixed dark brown eyes on Jane. “Captain Yamaguchi, my Navy family lost Captain Joshua Baraka of the
Louisiana
, Captain Paul Leonard of the
Minnesota
and Captain Janet Murchison of the
Wyoming
. I aim to ensure they will each receive the Navy Cross for their incredible willingness to dive their subs into enemy Collector ships. Thereby removing the ultimate threat to America. Their crews will each receive the Navy and Marine Corps Medal, plus the Purple Heart. Thank you.”

Poindexter’s expression did not show irritation. If anything, her veil of command sternness gained a tinge of sadness. She looked to Jane. “Captain, what is the status of your fleet? What ships, specifically, are still operational and able to defend Earth and the Solar system?”

She glanced at her systems graphic holo. It showed the presence of every operational Magfield engine in her spread-out fleet. Jane looked up. “Collector ships that are still operational include the
USS Blue Sky, USS Tangi Valley, USS Rolling Thunder, USS Takur Ghar, USS Seafloat, USS Chapultepec Castle, USS Manila Bay, USS Neil C. Roberts, USS Fallujah, USS Moberly
and the
USS Harken
. The
USS Musan
is intact but its Magfield engines are melted down.” She paused, glanced at the system graphic, then looked back. “Our surviving boomer subs include the
USS Henry M. Jackson, USS Alabama, USS Alaska, USS Nevada, USS Tennessee, USS Pennsylvania, USS West Virginia, USS Kentucky, USS Maryland, USS Nebraska, USS Rhode Island
and the
USS Maine.
Among our allies, there survive the
Dimitry Donskoy
, the
Yuri Dolgorukiy
and the
Emperor Huang Ti.
In short, 11 Collector ships and 15 subs are fully operational.”